[PHOTOS] Behind the Scenes at the Museum: A Preview of SLAM's New Addition

Along with the fancy new galleries, the museum will get a few other amenities:

A three-level parking garage (not free, alas):

An expanded gift shop and café:

And a restaurant that looks out onto Forest Park, more specifically down Art Hill toward the lagoon:

The restaurant hasn't been named, nor has a chef been appointed, but it will be run by Bon Appétit, the same company that prepares Washington University's award-winning cuisine. "We specialize in farm to fork," says spokeswoman Rosemary Pastore, "with seasonal ingredients and nothing from more than 150 miles away. We expect the new restaurant to be one hundred percent compliant."

The restaurant will serve lunch on weekdays, dinner on Fridays and brunch on the weekends. Brunch at the Art Museum is apparently such a beloved tradition that Kristin Lamprecht, the museum's special events director, gets weekly inquiries about it -- even though it hasn't been served in three years, since construction began.

All in all, the museum staff and builders are very pleased with what they've done. Says Fausz, "We've turned a twentieth-century structure into a twenty-first-century structure."